By Denen Achussah
BENUE State University (BSU) Makurdi, three decades after its establishment, has proven to be highly resilient. This is the position of Professor Terhemba Wuam, (pioneer Alumnus), Dean, Students Affairs, Kaduna State University, Kaduna State.
Prof Wuam was the Guest Lecturer at the BSU’s Combined Convocation Ceremonies and 30th Anniversary Celebration, and spoke on the theme: “Embracing Change and Building Resilience Through Innovation: The Role of Universities.”
With a student population of 25,977, comprising 24,354 undergraduates and 1,623 postgraduate students, BSU currently runs 61 academic programmes out of which 52 have full accreditation and one denied accreditation while six are new programmes and one has had a verification visit. All these are served by the staff population of 1,908 out of which 697 are academic staff, 694 are senior non-teaching staff, while 517 are junior staff.
He defined the university as the pinnacle of the knowledge process, explaining that universities as advanced institutions of learning, through teaching and research, educate the state and nation.
“They provide new and innovative knowledge that can be adopted to solving societal challenges. The ability of universities to do this, session by session, generation to generation, and doing so with sustained academic excellence, illustrates how resilient a particular university or the entire university system of the country is. In this regard, we can say that BSU, three decades after, has proven to be highly resilient,” Prof Wuam posited.
According to Prof Wuam, universities are indispensable but their indispensability is rooted in their research and innovation and how able they are at providing solutions to societal problems. “When universities fail to do this, they stand the risk of being irrelevant. In order to remain relevant, universities, globally through teaching and research, are taking leading roles in the lives of states in diverse areas like economy, science, technology, social organisation are seeking to have impact on the local and national society.”
He maintained that the current developmental challenges necessitate a more active role from universities, charging universities to learn from those that have been doing it over a thousand years – the Americas and the Europeans – and insisted that Nigerian universities must embrace change.
Prof Wuam, who paid glowing tributes to his teachers-graduates of the BSU have reaped great intellectual rewards from the institution.
“I graduated three times from BSU. First, it is a degree, I followed it up with an MA, then a PhD. I can, therefore, say BSU and our professors who were also our mentors educated us very well for the challenges of life and different professions. The university gave us qualitative education and inculcated in us life-long learning and service disposition to humanity,” he noted.
A new Chancellor, His Gracious Majesty, King (Barr.) Disrael Gbobo Bob-Manuel II, KSC, JP, UN-MP, DSSRS, Ekineye Gbobo (I), Owukori (IX), the Amanyanabo and Paramount Ruler of Abonnema, was installed during the events of the 18th–21st Combined Convocation Ceremonies and 30th Anniversary Celebration of the university.
Benue State University was founded by the Benue State Government in 1992, serving 306 students with 149 lecturers for the 1992/1993 inaugural school year in four colleges – Arts, Education, Sciences, and Social Science.
BSU’s 6th Vice Chancellor, led a cocktail of events lined up for the celebration of the university’s three decades of impactful existence. In addition to the combined convocation activities include official commissioning of the statues of the late civilian governors of Benue State, Mr Aper Aku and Rev. Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu by Professor Joe Tor Iorapuu, the incumbent Vice-Chancellor.
Notwithstanding the support of the Visitor, Chief Hon says one of the major challenges of the university is funding. “We greatly appreciate Government for the continuous payment of staff salaries but running the University without overhead, which has since ceased, has brought enormous pressure on the University. We, therefore, depend solely on User-Charges which have become increasingly inadequate in the face of economic realities.
The icing on the anniversary celebration was the Memorial Lecture in Honour of the late Rev. Fr. Adasu (Pioneer Visitor) of the university, on the theme noted earlier. Other side events but no less attractive include novelty games, maiden Vice Chancellor’s free healthcare services to members of staff and the award of degrees.
The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the BSU, Chief Sebastien Tar Hon, SAN, FCIArb, DSSRS, thinks that 30 years in the life of any institution that is standing and still growing is worth celebrating.
According to Chief Hon, BSU, the first state-owned university in “Northern Nigeria, is proud to celebrate its life and times in the past 30 years. What started as a wobbling, fledging institution has developed into a large complex industrial organisation visible world-wide through quality of our products who are doing exploits around the globe, recognition by the World Bank which has situated a Centre for Food Technology and Research in our domain.”
A total number of 23,000 candidates were conferred with various degrees and diplomas as follows: Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctor of Philosophy and Postgraduate Diploma.
The Chancellor, His Gracious Majesty, King (Barr.) Disrael Gbobo Bob-Manuel II, KSC, JP, UN-MP, DSSRS, Ekineye Gbobo (I), Owukori (IX), the Amanyanabo and Paramount Ruler of Abonnema, performed the ceremony of the conferment of the degrees on behalf of the Senate of BSU. He also accepted to work for the achievements of the vision of BSU.
Five eminent Nigerians also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees in recognition of their sterling contributions to the nation in their various endeavours. They are the Chancellor, His Gracious Majesty, King Disrael Gbobo Bob-Manuel II – Doctor of Laws (D.LL), Honoris Causa; His Excellency, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, CON – Doctor of Laws (D. LL), Honoris Causa, Dr Paul Idoko Enenche – Doctor of Divinity (D. Div), Honoris Causa, Chief Christopher Chuka Edordu, OON – Doctor of Commerce (D. Com), Honoris Causa and Prince Engr. Arthur Eze, OFR – Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), Honoris Causa.
Chief Hon, SAN, attributed the achievements of BSU to “the unflinching support of our untiring Visitor, His Excellency, Samuel Ortom and his predecessors, the past councils on whose building block we have continued to develop, the Vice-Chancellor and his Management team and his predecessors as well as staff who have committed themselves over the decades to ensure the success of this project.” He was also full of praises to “the Tertiary Education Trust Fund [TETfund] whose sponsored projects are dotted all over our campus, ditto Petroleum Technology Development Fund [PTDF], ALGON [Association of Local Governments of Nigeria] and a host of our development partners within and outside Nigeria.”
With a student population of 25,977, comprising 24,354 undergraduates and 1,623 postgraduate students, BSU currently runs 61 academic programmes out of which 52 have full accreditation and one denied accreditation while six are new programmes and one has had a verification visit. All these are served by the staff population of 1,908 out of which 697 are academic staff, 694 are senior non-teaching staff, while 517 are junior staff.
Notwithstanding the support of the Visitor, Chief Hon says one of the major challenges of the university is funding. “We greatly appreciate Government for the continuous payment of staff salaries but running the University without overhead, which has since ceased, has brought enormous pressure on the University. We, therefore, depend solely on User-Charges which have become increasingly inadequate in the face of economic realities.
“With all my years of teaching in the university, I have never met a set of students that read as students of Benue State University. If you come here 3:00am, you find students in all the lecture halls, reading. On Saturdays and on Sundays, and I am saying this not politically, but I am saying what I have observed.”
“This is aside from the pension and gratuity liabilities and arrears of Earned Academic Allowance/Earned Allowance. We appeal to Government to restore overhead allocation to the University and allow the University to minimally increase the User-Charges, and settle the pension and gratuity liabilities,” the chairman of council appealed.
He praised the industrial harmony in the university, while enjoining “the various campus unions to continue to cooperate with Council in ensuring enduring peace on campus. Similarly, we appeal to our teeming students to be decent in character, diligent in study and law-abiding to be qualified to earn degrees of the University.”
The Vice Chancellor, Prof Iorapuu, in adopting the speech of the Chancellor, went on to assert that he has very robust students in the university. “With all my years of teaching in the university, I have never met a set of students that read as students of Benue State University. If you come here 3:00am, you find students in all the lecture halls, reading. On Saturdays and on Sundays, and I am saying this not politically, but I am saying what I have observed.”
Prof Iorapuu also noted that BSU is also “working towards ensuring students participation in the governance of this university. We are very hopeful that what is practiced globally will be done here very soon. The students will be [privileged] to sit in the Senate; to become part of the conversation about the governance of the university.”
According to the vice chancellor, BSU has enjoyed infrastructural development but “needs more especially students’ hostels. We are looking forward to thinking that His Excellency, before the tenure ends will do something for this university, especially, the students’ hostels.”
He further commended Governor Ortom for his passion for the university. “Your Excellency Sir, by integrating the earned allowances in the salaries of staff of the university, which you started long ago, it’s something that most universities, including federal universities have not done. By putting the university on the first-line charge, I can say, that even when salaries are not paid to other members of the other ministries of this state, Benue State University gets salaries. And I want to say this because we have visiting vice chancellors that are here that even when the strike was on, the state government was paying the salaries of staff of the state university.”
Prof Iorapuu announced the handing over of ADC and Tarka Foundation by the Benue State Government to the university. “At Tarka Foundation, Benue State University will be starting an Institute for Middle Belt and Minority Rights Studies. And we think that this is something that will attract the attention of all the minorities in this country,” he said.
He is optimistic that the recipients of the university’s honorary degrees will join the league of alumni of the university in lifting BSU to higher heights.
Meanwhile, the Visitor, Governor Ortom, reiterated that education remains the solution to the myriad of challenges facing the society. The motto of BSU is ‘Scientia Liberatio Populurum’ (Education for the Liberation of a People). He assured of the continued support of his government towards attainment of the objectives of the founding fathers of the BSU.
“There is no gainsaying that education remains the all-time solution to the myriad of challenges facing mankind,” Governor Ortom said, noting that the denial of the rights of children to education as “largely responsible for the 80% of the challenges we face as a country, whether it is the herder-terrorist attack on farming communities, banditry or Boko Haram.”
While expression satisfaction by the achievement of the university in its 30 years, Ortom charged graduates of BSU to be good ambassadors of the institution, as he confirmed the handing over of three assets of the state government to the university. “In pursuance of the University’s vision to be the University of first choice in Nigeria and Africa, and among the top 200 in the world, my government has bequeathed three critical assets to the Institution, namely: the Makurdi Zoological Garden, the J.S Tarka Foundation, and the defunct Agricultural Development Company (ADC),” the governor said.
He therefore, charged intellectuals in the university as well as the management, “to explore the full potentials of these assets to enhance research and economic fortunes of the institution and the state at large.
